Charmed Life
by Fasnacht
Summary: One case with a senator who plans to run for President made them well known. (They refuse to say famous. It's the f-word, after all). How is a couple hiding a huge secret going to survive the limelight? This is their adventure, and we're along for the ride, along with Twitter, Tumblr, the blogosphere, and the rest of the media. Luckily, we have better seats.
1. Chapter 1

**New series! I can't resist the lure of incorporating cliches and pop culture into my writing one more second. ****This is what came out.** I made up the hashtags and the handles and everything. None of this is real insofar as I know. So I hope I haven't committed a twitter faux pas. I own nothing, save my ideas. Please review! (P.S. It's been almost a year since I wrote a screenplay. Jeez, what I've forgotten shows! Sorry!) 

FADE IN:

INT. TALK SHOW STUDIO - MORNING

FIONA

Today on Agriculture Culture we will be discussing one of the most sensational dynamic duos horsemanship has seen in decades.

Footage of Deerpath Ranch is shown on screen as Fiona continues speaking, the barn, the rings, the pastures, and other such spaces are featured. Fade into SAM and JAKE working with a high profile case, the Senator's famous Rally Horse. JAKE looks at camera, and gestures to SAM. The footage fades.

FIONA

Hailed horse whispers of a new generation, the owners of Deer path Ranch in Northern Nevada take on cases that few other equine professionals would dare, and often achieve sensational, storybook endings.

Various news clippings of SAM and JAKE's work are shown in a short montage highlighting some of their more high profile cases including work with government officials and a tabloid cover of celebrity clients.

FIONA

After their rise to fame two years ago, Sam Forster and her partner, Jake Ely, have tackled more than just high profile cases.

In the corner of the screen, the VA logo is shown as FIONA continues.

FIONA

JACOB and SAMANTHA have maintained that they are simple ranchers who train horses on a part time basis, but their continual work with horses and veterans' with PTSD suggest that they have stayed true to their roots even as they deny their fame. SAMANTHA'S father owns a ranch near their highly private ranch, as does the ELY family. The couple is notoriously private and has never granted a personal interview.

Footage of River Bend and Three Ponies are shown, mainly of a recent family party for CODY. The footage is blurred and choppy and obviously shot from a distance.

FIONA

Despite a decades long relationship that has sometimes been speculated as romantic, other sources suggest that this rumor is finally being put to rest, being

that SAMANTHA has recently been spotted in Fargo, ND, working alone. Could there be trouble in paradise for the golden couple of Deerpath Ranch?

A photo of SAM and JAKE walking hand in hand through a farmer's market is shown. The photo was obviously taken by a cell phone.

FIONA

What say you, viewer? Our call-in hour begins in three minutes. I'm Fiona Phillips, this is Agriculture Culture, and we'll be right back after this.

Jazzy music plays as the camera zooms out over the sitting room style set. Fiona smiles, and the show fades to commercial.

FADE OUT.

Voices, images, and sounds filled his brain. His body was alight with awareness and knowing. He loved this floating part of the morning. He felt so whole. He was not going to get out of bed, no matter what she said. Jake stirred, smelling the warm scent of boiling tea and the frying of eggs. His fingers hurt suddenly, and his eyes popped open. Satisfaction slid down his limbs, as he tasted warm toast in his mouth. "I'm up." Sam was cruel. There was no raisin bread in the house, and there she was, literally waxing rhapsodic about it, "Cool your jets."

He heard a soft chuckle as the sensations were dampened, "I've been up for hours." Jake rolled out of his bed at Deerpath, and heard Quinn going downstairs to eat. He had to hurry if there was going to be any coffee left. At 26, he was still seen as the little brother by all of them, and was likely to end up with an oatmeal sandwich if he didn't hurry. Jake closed off his mind and quickly dressed, ignoring the build up of thoughts and emotions that happened when shut off a very alive part of his conciseness. He dropped the mental focus only to feel a thousand tiny thoughts rush forward. He saw flashes of a plate of eggs that he wished he was eating, felt the warmth of a mug of herbal tea that he'd never drink in his hands, and saw the world take on a new inflection, one that was softer and more loving. He closed his eyes quickly to push that away as a twinge of something strange, foreign, alien, and all too familiar knotted in his abdomen. Jake looked at the calendar and groaned as he walked into the kitchen. Annoyance of his own ripped through him as Quinn sat there, eating the last of the Frosted Flakes. He wasn't up to making breakfast, he wanted his damn cereal, and his idiot brother was eating it. Quinn saluted him with his spoon.

"What?" Sam's voice was laughing, pushing at the edges of his vision. He let her have her way, and could feel her seeing, secondarily, through his eyes. Jake ignored how odd it still felt after all of these years and went over to the cupboard and poured half the box of fruit loops into a bowl. Sam was disproving, "You really should eat some fruit or something."

Jake returned, "Why don't you come home, then?" She could just come home if she was going to nag and boss and make his brain hurt. These distances made it harder.

Jake felt the chill of the wind as it blew past Sam. She had beaten him outside, and this wasn't her first time outside. Quinn broke in, "Morning Sammy!"

Jake found himself rooted back in the kitchen at Three Ponies, staring at his brother, his cereal in front of him. He sometimes loved it when he spaced out like that, when he was physically here but mentally wherever she was. It was creepy sometimes, though. Jake leveled a look at his brother, but was distracted by chatter in his head. "I'm not Western Union, Sam. I'm not repeating that." He said it out loud, and Quinn grinned.

Emotions were overwhelming him. He was pushed to the edge as images flooded his brain. All he could think about were ASPCA commercials. Tears filled his eyes. She was showing him pictures of poor kittens with no homes when he said to Quinn, "Sam wants you to know that..." She was starting in on him with the abandoned, sick, puppies. He couldn't take it anymore. She knew he was emotional right now, and she was exploiting that for her own sadistic gain. She was evil. Evil. "She misses you very much, Quinn."

Jake pictured exactly how he was going to get her back for that one, and felt her sensory feedback with a thread of anticipation. Quinn was unawares, and Jake was miserable when he realized that Sam wasn't actually in the room, staring at him with wide eyes like he'd actually surprised her.

Quinn paused, "I caught a few minutes of _Agriculture Culture_ this morning." Quinn said, and Jake groaned. That Fiona was the gossip queen of their entire industry. Sam wrote her a Christmas card just to have the pleasure of tearing it up. Jake knew this morning's batch of speculation was bad when Quinn asked, "When she getting back from North Dakota, anyhow?" Sam's insistence his mind faded back to normal awareness with a soft flood of warmth. She should be thankful after what she put him through just now.

"Not soon enough." Jake said, sticking his spoon into his cereal, "Why she said we just had to take that case out there is beyond me." Jake pushed the play button on the message machine and listened to the first of 75 messages asking for a booking with Deerpath Ranch's owners to look at their horse. Jake pushed pause with some level of annoyance as some woman asked them to find out what her mare wanted her foal to be named. Like they could actually do that. There weren't mind readers. How did people keep getting their numbers, anyway?

Quinn noticed his expression as the woman's annoying voice faded away, "Haven't you heard? Sam Forster and her sidekick, Jake Ely, are Horse Whisperers." They weren't sidekicks, but Jake allowed the brother whose paychecks he signed to continue on, "The rumor going round is that they can telepathically communicate with their cases, can see the world through their eyes, feel their emotions, and they might even be able to channel them." Quinn ate another bite of cereal, and spoke around his food,"What a load of bunk. Who ever heard of channeling a horse?"

Jake rolled his eyes, "Yeah, because being able to do all of that with your girlfriend isn't freaky at all."

It had started out simply enough, bits of knowing that they could pass of as simply knowing each other well, the silly assertion that they could read each other's minds. He'd been freaked out, a wreck, when it started at 20. He thought they'd somehow ended up drugged. Sam refused to believe that they were compacting telepathically, refused to believe it, until there had been an incident they were not allowed to talk about, some days after they'd started getting flashes that they passed off as nothing. He'd connected with her mind in a very intimate situation, to say the least, and had ended up freaking himself out as his desire had been fed back to him in a loop. He'd never actually tried to channel during sex again. It was too much.

After that, they could no longer block each other out, could no longer deny that there were somehow, telepathic, or psychic, or something. He had no idea, and Sam hated labels. It didn't work with other people and it wasn't a perfectly clear connection all of the time. It really depended on emotions, and sometimes even the weather. For example, when Sam got mad, he not only had to work through that with her, but he also had to deal with a pounding headache. It was like there was a telephone in their bodies that allowed them to literally call to each other without a second thought, that allowed them to be there with each other mentally, even when she was 1300 miles away, though the connection took more work, like a radio transmitter. It was strange. At first, they hadn't talked for days, had sworn off sex, and had retreated back to their respective corners of the world. Then, Jake had woken up with a massive headache and some kind of cold. He got a fever. It was hell.

The massive pressure in his brain only let up when he tried to reach out to Sam. A thousand built up thoughts and sensations had flooded his body, and he'd blacked out in the dining room of Three Ponies. Later, they'd figured that three days of blocking each other out was three days too long. They had built up the ability to block each other completely when they needed privacy, but it wasn't natural, and sometimes, it was downright painful. Sam saved those moments for nights out with Jen, and the occasional doctor's appointment. It was strange to feel sensations related to body parts he did not have, though to hear Sam tell it, it was worse on her end. Jake blocked her out when Darrell wanted to talk about Ally, and when Mom asked him why he wasn't married yet. Sam teased him about his mother's desire to marry them off.

The best thing they had figured out how to do was to direct the flow of the connection into small things. As Jake walked across the yard, towards the barn, he allowed his mind to send her flashes of the snow, flashes of her horses as he cared for them, allowed her to feel their bodies as he groomed them. It was the small things that kept them centered. He saw her walking into a show barn somewhere near Fargo, heard her talking with the owner of their case, and quickly interjected mentally over an idea she might have forgotten as he fed the horses. The idea he'd shared was embraced by the client when Sam added information she knew to it, and their fate was sealed. The woman 1300 miles away exclaimed, "Why, you really are a horse whisperer, Miss Forster!" Their reputations snowballed once again. Jake pulled out of the corner of her mind. He didn't like being there for too long, because then he just missed her more.

As he listened to Sam educating the handlers, he was happy, simply because he knew she'd be home soon and his soul could stop traveling astrally so much when he slept. He did not like going strange places, and Fargo was not his kind of place. He saddled up Ace, and headed out.

**Porter Preston: **

Jake. You two are trending for the third time this month. It's not #Sakebumpwatch or #SakeWedding but #SakeSplitsville. Anything I should know?

**Jake's Private Number: **

Seen, 9:09

Porter Preston: Jake? If you don't reply to your agent, I will be forced to fly myself out there and demand the next chapter of your book. I will then spend your profits on a Veyron. See if I don't.

**Jake's Private Number: **

I fired my agent.

**Porter Preston:**

Haha, it's in my contract. You can't fire me without Sam's consent, which is unlikely considering you've broken up. #SakeSplitsville?

** Jake's Private Number:**

#SakeForever

Porter Preston:

...

...

I knew you had a Tumblr, you liar!

Quinn found him hours later, sitting under a blanket, watching _I Love Lucy. _Quinn plopped down on the chair, "Should I get some chocolates, and we can talk about our wedding colors?"

Jake scowled, "Fuck off, Quinn." He paused the TV, and looked as his brother. Why did he put up with the guy, again? Why had he been the one to say, years ago, "Quinn, come work with me and Sam when we set up the business?" Why had he asked his brother to live with them? Wait. Even he wasn't that insane. That had been Mom, not him, or Quinn. Everybody in the family was really not cool with him and Sam living together in unrepentant sin, so Quinn acted as a chaperone, though the chaperoning he did was rather limited. It was mostly for appearances, Jake guessed, so that Grace could say that her little girl was living with family, and not her boyfriend, even though they had lived together since Sam came to college and graduated when he finished his master's degree.

Quinn taunted him. "Sam handles this better than you do." Yeah, of course she did, even though he only felt a tiny fraction of her physical sensations, much like she did with him, unless they were totally unguarded or totally focused. Her body was actually built for this cycle of hell. She took some sadistic delight in allowing this to happen to her body, month after month after month. She also found joy in threatening to decapitate him when he asked her if they could have a baby just so he wouldn't get PMS. It had been a weak moment after there was a baby spread about them in _Country Monthly_, and he regretted the idea, not because he didn't want a baby, he just didn't want one now, and not until Sam did, too. They couldn't give a baby a good life. Even Cody felt the ill effects of a well known sister.

Nothing happened to Jake except the horrible parts, the emotionality, the PMS hunger. He didn't actually have the relief of anything actually happening, because he lacked the biological side of the process. The clawing feeling of emptiness and explicit need for closeness at random hours of the day had freaked him out at first, until he realized that he was picking up on her specific desires, and was not actually having homosexual urges. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but he could not handle the idea of having a sexual identity crisis and PMS in the same week. "She doesn't even blink an eye, and you bawl like a baby." Quinn asserted, "Sure you don't want some Midol?"

Jake did not want to admit that he'd tried that. He'd done it twice, certain that it took more than one dose to work. It had just made him have to go to the bathroom, and made the headache in the back of his mind worse because he couldn't sleep. Sam had laughed until she cried, "You're trying to treat my headache?" Then, she'd gotten all teary and said he was a nice person but that Midol was just like taking a tylenol and some no-doze. Then, she'd threatened to call Jen and tell her what a nice guy he was. Quinn did not need to know that.

Jake was halfway to telling his brother off so he could watch Lucy and Ethel duke it out when a sudden image flashed in his mind.

Jake reached for the notebook next to him on the side table, and began to scribble down what he was seeing rapidly. "Sorry." He said to Quinn, who just turned on the TV and went about watching TV. Jake focused on mental images she was sending him as she lowered the boundaries between their connection completely. Sam was asking him about the case, but wasn't in a place that she could let him in without some kind of cover for any distractedness that came with, nor could she allow herself to be vulnerable. Automatic writing was faster and allowed her to act like she was taking notes, when really, they were using the pens as a medium to communicate their thoughts in front of random people. He wasn't consciously controlling the pen as it flowed over the page. Jake believed that his subconscious was at work, it was just that that part of his brain was talking to Sam, who was replying in kind.

He spent the rest of the morning working on their various cases. Quinn took off for parts unknown, probably to check on the cover crops and to ride fence. Jake planned to meet him later. They didn't keep much cattle around the place, focusing instead on the horses and on what crops they could grow to supplement and support River Bend and Three Ponies. They'd started to work towards a no-till model since they'd gotten home from college, and it was saving them water from the snow melt that they relied on each year, or at least he hoped. They were hopeful that they would be able to weather the climate with some soil health in tact, if not outright regeneration over time. He sat down to a lonely lunch, and mused, "Maybe we should get some hands around here or something." The house was so quiet, and there was no one to talk to, or look at. Still, he knew the idea of hands were but idle musings. It would be hard to trust people, even with an NDA, as the equestrian world was small.

Sam's presence in the back of his mind came forward. He could see her grabbing her own lunch in the space she'd been offered as part of her case. Jake felt empathy flood his veins. She missed him, too. She was sending him images of warmth, cuddles. It wasn't really helping, and the image he was getting of red ink pens was confusing. He didn't get what she was trying to tell him he guessed, because a second later, his phone buzzed with a text.

**Sam's Private Number: **

Go see Max.

He muttered, "Why didn't you just say so?" He put his hat on his head, put the dishes in the sink, and made his way home to Mama.

**Seth's Number: **

Heading in with the kids in a few days.

**Adam's Number: **

Us, too.

**Kit's Number: **

(Photo of sunny HI coastline)

**Brian's Number: **

Eat lead, Kit. We still meeting at Three Ponies? Quinn? Jake?

**Jake's Number: **

Yes. All set.

**Kit's Number: **

What about the paps?

**Jake's Number: **

You're deluded. We're not that well known. Shut up.

**Kit's Number: **

Dude, you're on the news out here. Weekly, if not daily.

**Brian's Number: **

There were photographers at Cody's party for God's sake.

**Quinn's Number:**

Nah, we'll be fine. Haven't y'all heard? #SakeSplitsville. They won't be looking for #JakeEly here as #SAFE will have kicked his sorry behind out. #CuteQuinn will have stayed behind to comfort his only sister.

**Seth: **

Couldn't Tumblr and Twitter do better than cute? How about #conceited?

Being at home was interesting. Three Ponies wasn't his home anymore, though he never said that to his mother, who was running around preparing for Christmas. It sucked to be alone right now. It was winter and almost Christmas. Sam should be home. She was the most confusing female he'd ever known. He couldn't imagine knowing how to communicate with her if he couldn't open up the way they did. Except, Jake thought, he couldn't say that to anyone. Only Quinn knew, and he'd promised to take their secret to the grave. No one knew. They weren't going to risk it. Still, the tension of having this huge secret from everyone weighed on them heavily. He stuck in the mashed potatoes, wishing once again that Sam was home. "Mom? Do you need help or something?"

Mom came back into the kitchen. She studied him carefully as he ate, "You look rather ill, Jake." She was always concerned that his 'fame' was going to go to his head and he'd up using drugs. She never said that to his face, but the statistics she sometimes spouted made her concerns clear. He wished that she would see him as a rancher and not as someone famous. He was not as good as his job as everyone said, and their 15 seconds of fame couldn't be over soon enough.

He swallowed, sipped his milk to assuage the burns he'd no doubt caused himself, and replied, "Nah, just a bit of a headache. I'm not sleeping well." Jake hoped that was a bland enough statement to cover the chill in his body and the vague wrongness of life.

Mom's lips pursed, "Be careful you don't say such things around your Aunt Hill." Her tone was sharp, though somehow also resigned. "She'll think she wasn't invited to the wedding."

Jake forced up a mental fog that would keep Sam out. He could ask her not to listen, but this was safer. Jake nearly groaned, "Jeez, Mom." She knew full well that there had been no wedding, and was trying to get him to admit it so she could corner it, "Kit and Cricket lived together, and I see you laying into them."

Mom snapped a bean with a vengeance. "They were engaged. It was forgivable. At least then there was some kind of formal commitment so that everyone who cared knew..." She sighed, catching his expression, "And you two, the one couple everyone knew would be just so happy, stubbornly refuse to get married."

Jake's head was pounding already. Fucking Fargo, he thought. "Mom. What do you want me to say? We're happy, we're committed to each other, what do you want?" Jake asked, "We've been together longer than some marriages."

Mom replied, crossly, "Don't remind me. Six years, Jacob, and not one move towards sharing with the world how you feel, not one step towards a family." She picked up another bean as sweat started to bead on Jake's body, "You know, Sam's going to be 24 in the spring. Jen already has two, and she's in vet school." Jake didn't think she understood how hard it was for them to have a little privacy in this world of connections, the internet, blogs. They'd agreed to just have this one thing between them, for them only. It didn't belong to anyone else.

Jake knew he was embarking on a trip down guilt lane. "God, Mom." He said, crossly, "If Sam knew you were saying this stuff, she'd be pissed." Jake tried not to let on how hard it was not to let her see this, but a guy had to have some pride.

"Why? I should think she would want what her friends all have. You're not kids in college anymore." Mom replied, "Besides, I'm telling you all of this so you get it. She's not here, is she?"

Jake released the mental block, and nearly banged his head on the table as his mind near to pulsated with images, snippets of a conversation, and feelings. He exhaled, and looked up, "Fine, Mom, fine." Jake agreed. Mom's expression brightened until he spoke, "We'll get working on that baby you want so much. It's not as if your collection of grandchildren is large enough."

Sam was distracted with travel, so she only caught a fragment of what he was saying. He said grandchildren, and warm, fuzzy, feelings bloomed within his heart, feelings that matched his own, but were far different in their orientation. Sam liked all of the nieces and nephews she was collecting. Unless he missed his guest, she'd gotten an airport postcard for Mark, who collected such things.

She spluttered, "I don't want to be fed a pack of lies!" Jake hung around on the porch for ten seconds. The screen door clattered as Mom came out and said exactly what she expected, "Though, if you two should have anything to announce this Christmas, I'll always love..." She stopped speaking when she caught sight of his expression, "Oh, just get on with you."

Jake's boots crunched in the snow as he did just that.

**RoperRilez**: _ HrseLuver1993_ #SamForster is in SLC! I just saw her! She's got a vintage leather bag! #Prada? #twitpic

**HorseLuver**: _ RoperRilez_: #SamForster would never wear #Prada. #JenKenworthy BF is a Brit. It's totes Burberry. #SakeFacts

Sam disembarked from the flight from Fargo to Salt Lake, and made her way through the airport. She had 36 minutes to make her way from Concourse B, Gate 3, to her flight from Salt Lake to Elko in Concourse C, Gate 12. Sam was glad that she only had her overnight bag as she hoofed it quickly through the airport, hanging a sharp left past the ticket counters, and another right into Concourse C. The crowds were maddening at midday. She'd wanted to be home by dinner, after having been away for days and days. She missed Jake. It seemed crazy to her that she could miss someone who was never mentally far away, even though he did take unnecessary pains to block her out when Max brought up marriage and babies. Max had nothing on Gram, who'd 'gifted' her with a subscription to _Brides' Magazine _six months ago.

Sam tucked her Lands' End leather bag that she'd found at Goodwill around her body, wishing that she hadn't racked up so many Sky Miles in the last six months on cases. She unzipped her coat and moved along, hating that her plane had landed late due to snow in Montana. Her iPod was buzzing in her ears, the only thing that was keeping her awake after an intensive period of work. She was exhausted, but was grounded from yet another success. Sam was waiting in line to board when there came a tap on her shoulder. She looked around quickly and removed her earbuds, winding them around her iPod as the teenager next to her spoke, "Oh. My. God. I thought it was you, and Marietta said it wasn't because Jake's not with you, but it is you!" The girl gushed, "I'm so happy to meet you!"

Jake chuckled inside her head. This was still new to her, and seemed insane. She was just her. There she was, standing in a line in grungy Wrangler jeans she hadn't been able to wash, and a sweater that she'd all but slept in to make her early check in time in Fargo, having this teenager gush over her like she was famous. Jake sent images of various media coverages, and she realized that, to this girl, she was a person of some regard, albeit minor. She felt like the barn rat she really was, and wished she could help the girl see beyond all of the cases and the idiot people who'd spilled their stories to make them famous. They should have thought more carefully about that case with the senator, because she may be president one day, and she had started the firestorm almost two years ago. She was glad that she had at least brushed her teeth. "Hi."

"I'm Jane." The girl replied, quickly, moving along with Sam as the line moved forward. Her luggage knocked her in the knees as she moved. "I read your column in _Horse Monthly_, and I read your blog, and I'm just such a huge fan. You and Jake should do a TV show on RFD." The girl suggested, and Sam figured that she would be good friends with Porter, "I would watch! I've even got a YouTube playlist for y'all." The girl stopped gushing for a second, "So, can I ask you a question?"

The airport seemed cavernous as Sam wondered how on earth she would reply if the girl asked a horse question neither she or Jake knew the answer to. That had happened the last time they were in the airport. They'd talked about flying separately, but that felt torturous. Sam nodded slowly, figuring this line was going to take forever anyway. She wished that Jake wasn't in her head when Jane asked, "So, uhm, is Jake really as cute in person?"

Sam could feel his uncomfortable blush as though she were the one blushing. Sam shook her head sadly, "No, I'm afraid not." She lowered her voice, "His feet, you know."

The question echoed in her mind even as it came from Jane's mouth. "His feet?" Jane replied, her eyebrows in her hair, "What about them?" She was talking quickly, desperate to get an answer before Sam's turn came up, fast approaching as the business people ahead of her moved along. Sam had previously thought them to be missionaries, but they weren't, she decided, upon further reflection.

"Well..." Sam said, conspiratorially, "Don't tell, but he trips all the time. It's quite funny, but it does ruin his persona, don't you think?" Jane gaped. Sam was next at the counter, so she waited for the woman ahead of her to finish.

Sam tried not to let humor show in her smile as Jane mumbled, that yes, it was quite sad. Sam was next in line, so thankfully, Jane made her way back to her group of friends after saying again how much she loved her. True to Sam's predication, Jane was pulling out her phone the second her back was turned. "There." Sam said mentally, "Now everyone knows how klutzy you are."

She gripped the strap of her bag quickly as she fumbled with her boarding pass. Jake's voice was heated and laughing, "Brat, you just told the equestrian side of Tumblr that I've got big feet."

Sam grinned as she thought of the perfect comeback as she interacted with the man at the gate, "I also told them you have no idea how to handle them."

"Damn." Jake replied, humor not at all gone from the voice in her head as she went through security, "Guess all my fan blogs are just going to go away."

"Seven blogs, oh, the internet will crumble."

**Jake's Private Number: **

Since you talked to Jane, I've got three new fanblogs.

Her phone buzzed again with a captioned screenshot.

Jake's Private Number:

** #JakesKlutzyFeet**

Sam powered off her phone easily as the flight attendant glared at her. Sam smiled and said, "Sorry." She wasn't, though, not really. She should have been though, as in their corner of the internet, #klutzyfeetrsexy and #luckysam began to take life.

**FiPhilOffical**: #Sake #Sakespiltsville: Inside source reveals reasons for break-up. Stay tuned for special #Sake segment tomorrow morning on Agriculture_Culture.


	2. The Fruit of the Spirit

**This is my attempt at doing a PastLives!fic within the confines of a telepathy!fic. I rather like the idea of Sam and Jake's souls cycling like this. I don't know that I accept a lot of these lives as headcannon, but they work within the context of this story. At the very least, it explains the telepathy. **

"_According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves._"

-Plato, _The Symposium _

**Gentleness: The reign of Ahmose I**

He was a hard man, a tough man, a man born to follow his orders and do as he felt was right. Rarely, if ever, did those two things ever conflict. He loved his mother and honored his Gods. Not all of his people agreed with the campaign, but he knew that he had to stand strong for the men under his command.

The city was burning, but he did not allow his eyes to water as he searched the wreckage. His own troops had been a day late. He was behind schedule and annoyed at the delay in going to find Re'hotpe. The smoke was thick. Still, it was his duty to find his commander's son, who had used his father's influence to make his way into the front lines of the burning city and the chaos. Re'hotpe was a grown man, but no man would willingly let his son be left behind, not when he could order other men to find him. He stilled his horse and made his way through the battle and the confusion, back into an area that had already been pillaged, "Re'hotpe?" The younger man had last been accounted for in the scrimmage in this area. "Re'hotpe?"

His horse barred his teeth as he pulled on the reins and came to a stop at a sudden sound. It was the sob of a woman, a girl. If Re'hotpe was having his way with some girl, he would thrash the child into oblivion. They were here for the glory of their homeland, not to slake their lusts. "Re'hotpe?" He demand, pulling aside a smoking doorway into a house that was so unlike ones he found to be traditional. The Hyksos had to go, they could not even build homes. He was sorry it had to be this way, but war was war.

The man he sought was not here. The person crying was not, in fact, a woman. It was but a boy, crying over the bodies of three women. One was aged, and had obviously died from fright or whatever it was that took the aged in times of war. He knew it all too well. It had taken so many. The second was obviously the child's mother, as her body was blocking a doorway. She had died trying to protect the shrine of her Gods, protect her family. Ruthless soldiers were not uncommon as the city was overthrown and there was blood everywhere. Some men took delight in exerting heartless control over women. The third woman stopped him in his tracks. Something cried out to him. He could not think. The boy spoke, unaware that he should never speak to a solider he did not know, "Sadeh was to leave the city yesterday, before the city began to burn. She was going to take me. It was to be an adventure at the farm." The boy whispered, pushing aside dark hair that framed his sister's face. The father was obviously gone, dead, and there had been plans to evacuate the boy, with his sister for security. They would have met on the road, he realized. He would have seen her alive, seen her smile, and he knew he had missed something important because of a broken axle. He cursed his chariot before he knew what he was doing, or why this foreign girl with an Egyptian name even mattered.

The morbid thoughts raced through him. "Come away!" The boy jumped, letting out another sob. He could not allow himself to care. He saw another house standing, and when they boy knew who lived there, he sent him there. It was all he could do. When the boy was safely inside where he knew other people to be hiding, he did the only thing he could. He quickly put a bit of food in her lifeless hand for a full afterlife, and covered the three women with acrid fabric. People would never believe a solider had done this act of mercy upon them. May the Gods keep them.

In his first life, his first incarnation, he was a solider. It wasn't an uncommon occupation in those days, as Egypt was at the zenith of its power. He had a hand in expelling the Hyksos from Egypt and for saving the son of a powerful man. And yet, he lived and died alone, honored as a solider among soldiers, honored as a hero across the dynasties. He died with one word on his lips, one word that the Priests and Scribes omitted from history because they did not understand its context. He died smiling, "Sadeh..."

**Patience: Ancient Greece **

There are many things that humans don't know about life, even though they live it, and she was aware enough to know that fact all to well, even though she knew she could do little about it. She was a Athenian maiden unlike many others. She valued education, and her father turned a blind eye when she wanted to study math and art in addition to homemaking. The sophists interested her, but she knew better than to get mixed up with them. The best she could do was listen when she could, and so it didn't do to be picky or choosy, when she shook off the watchful eye of her mother. She lingered around the agora as best she might, careful not to be seen. She heard a whisper, "Go to the Academy!" A woman, one probably who herself as her wares, hissed.

She knew what the Academy was. The Academy was run by Plato. Men and women gathered there to study law, philosophy, and so many other things. She wanted to be an orator, defend the law. She wanted to defend those who were too poor to do it themselves, but she knew better. She was living on borrowed time. Her wedding was ever approaching, and she was living on borrowed time, time stolen away from the preparations that grew in number every day.

The woman's words lingered as she was fitted for new clothing, as she tried to leave the women's section of the house with but a trustworthy slave to accompany her. She prayed for the death of this man she was to marry. She knew his name, but would not see him until they were married. She had no way to get out, but the Academy beckoned in late winter, weeks before her wedding. She had to get away. This was her lot in life, but there had to more out there for those who were not chained to a life of domesticity.

She went, one day when her mother was preparing for a religious festival and the wedding and was quite distracted. She said that she was going to send a slave for the herbs for the ritual bath she would take before she married. She had not mentioned anything about not going along to fetch them, which she did. There, she heard a group of men shouting back and forth as they debated love. They were passionate and she finally understood that she would never have love in her life.

One man in particular caught her eye, because of the way he opened the conversation to all people, and spoke of his travels. His argument was sound, even as she was hard pressed to keep up with his rhetoric. She sat for hours and listened. He smiled at her, his bearded face making it clear that he was a man of the books, not of the sword like her intended.

It was the only time she saw him. She was married not three weeks later, and lived a life much like any other, her husband leaving domestic duties to her, as he contented himself to going off to war and campaign. She rarely left home after her wedding, and for the first time in her life, that was just the way she wanted things to be. She could not imagine how much it would hurt to see him, him living a life that she still dreamed of, him looking at her with a smile in his eyes as another man's child grew in her belly. Childbirth took her life, along with the second child she carried. She never got to see her son study under one of the greatest rhetors the world had yet seen. Her son never knew that, once upon a time, the teacher that loved him like a son and smiled upon him had once favored his mother with that same smile.

**Faithfulness: 529 to 1820s**

Weary souls always find their rest, and hers took refuge in the Church, shortly after the Order of St. Benedict took hold across Europe. She spent nearly 1500 years in the Church, mostly entering as soon as she was able in childhood. Her soul had come to love searching for God, and she could not bear the agony of leaving children behind. She lived many lives as a nun, and later as a monk. Living as a man, she found solace in working with horses, and lived several good, if lonely, lives wherein horses at the monasteries in which she lived were her connection to God. The Benedictine Rule held fast to hard work and simple living, and she took refuge from a life of the mind and a life of the heart, and lived a life of simple service to cleanse her soul many times over.

The other monks would never understand, but he found God in nature and with the horses, and often saw flashes of wide open spaces that were covered with animals with humps on their backs as though she was being pulled towards them. After many, many, long and short lives, she was one of the first monks in her order to go America, knowing in her soul that her mission field was calling. The deck of the boat was as close to the States as her earthly body came. She died on the boat, her male body tossed overboard before she reached the Americas. Thus, she would never get to meet a young man that would have taught her the ways of his land, even as she used her incarnation to teach him about friendship. The soul she had never met lived a few more lives in quick succession before he died under the thumb of oppression, fighting against the exploitation of people she had hoped to save.

**Self Control: 1850, Somewhere West of Nowhere **

His soul knew loss and pain. His life had been stolen from him time and time again, first with smallpox and then with cultural domination and discrimination as his soul moved farther and farther West. He fought against it, using what he could of his education to speak out against oppression, even when they began to use more thorough methods to silence him. He read the land and sky and the grasses, and watched, slowly, as the wagons arrived and the trains ripped away a life he had lived for thousands of years. He mourned the deer, and the buffalo, and the horses. He was incredibly lonely, even as he lived in community with people he loved. The insightful among his people said his soul had always been that way.

He saw often, flashes of a lush, green, landscape, and felt pangs of hunger that were not his own. He lived to a great age many times over, and once rose to power within his community sharing visions of far away lands. His children grew close to the land, and his blessings were many. His soul knew it was waiting, though for what, he never quite knew on a conscious level. Every time he lived as a woman, and gave birth, he would look into the eyes of his children and wonder if his soul would recognize theirs. Sometimes they did, but never in the way he was searching for.

He was a young man, again, when it happened. They spoke for the first time. His soul knew, somehow, that this moment was momentous. It shouldn't have been. The girl was bedraggled as she rode astride on a borrowed horse. Her bonnet was waterlogged. David did not tip his hat at her when she came towards him. "Isn't the way?" She said, breaking every ounce of social convention that existed between people. The rain was heavy, but that did not excuse her breach, or her lack of common sense. He wanted to tell her he could be some kind of killer. She told him too much, "I'm going to California, and I'm going to strike it rich as a dressmaker and be my own woman. The least you ought to do is say hello."

"A woman like you ought to be on the stage." He said, gruffly. She was not suited to this landscape. Was she from Boston or something? He heard New England in her voice, as he had once heard from other passers by. Some followers of some church had once sought help at his ranch, which he gave. He knew what it was to have nowhere to turn.

"Well!" She bit out. "I might be independent, but that doesn't make me a lightskirt!" She clicked at her horse, and the mare jolted forward, clearly unused to be told what to do. The horse's pace stayed the same. David smiled. She had gotten the wool pulled over her eyes by that trader of horseflesh a few towns back.

"I meant the stagecoach, ma'am." She was lost, and he didn't think she knew that she was on private property. How had she gotten onto his land? Probably the same way she'd assumed he couldn't see her innocence shining like a light behind that riot of red hair. They had no choice but to ride out the rain side by side, though David was tempted to fall back or go on ahead. He could not make his body listen to his good sense. She was of lovely form, and he found himself wondering what she might say next. "Irish?"

She stuck out her chin and her accent thickened, "And what's it to you?" He heard the rest of her question that she did not speak. "You're hardly one to judge." She was right. The signs often read: No Irish, No Indians, and No Dogs. She seemed the type to go in anyway, as was he. His mother had always said he was foolish, but he wasn't about to stop. It had only gotten him in real trouble a time or two, and he knew how to handle himself. It was a huge risk, but he wasn't going to sit down.

He was hardly discriminating against her. He could not see this little slip of a girl as anything other than a young woman playing in the rain. Even in the dampness, the scent of lemongrass surrounded her. "The rush for gold is a fool's errand. The real gold's in the land and the sky." Thousands of people were heading west daily, and he couldn't help but be glad. At least his home wouldn't be as crowded, and nature would be free to do as the earth wished. It was odd, then, that he was warning her against going, "You ought to try your hand at ranching."

"Like you, you mean?" She snorted. Her horse tossed her head, and David had to reach out and grab the slippery reins before the girl fell off into the muddy sod. He could see a smudge of it on her face, and so clearly, she had a rough go of traveling. And yet, there was an instinctual grace to her movements. Maybe she'd had horses a child.

"You're on my land, ma'am." He corrected, gently, as he settled the horse. She wrenched the reins back from him and frowned. The horse sidestepped, and David wanted to grab her and make sure she was safe. It was a passing urge, he supposed, though he knew he had too much self-control.

"Stop calling me 'ma'am." She insisted, as she tried to control her flea-bitten mount, "I'm Sarah. This isn't your ranch." She was supremely confident. He heard the words she did not speak, heard the confusion she hid behind confidence. He wasn't the first of his people to own land, and he wasn't going to be the last.

"Don't believe me?" He did not bother to tell her that he had come by the land in the same way that many men did, though hard work and not taking any garbage from anyone. He owned the land, had the damn deed in the safe, and if they wanted to kill him for it, they could. The safe combination went with him. There was nothing that was going to stop him. He didn't have to argue with some little bit of a girl, who wasn't more than 14 to his 19. "Head up that way, stop at the strange rock and look around for the main road. You're lost, Sarah." Her name was peppery on his lips. She looked like a mouse, all wet and indignant. He didn't tell her she'd have to ride for a few miles, or that his house was closer.

She looked at him, for a second, and did just that. He waited 50 years for her to come back, wishing he'd known whatever had happened to her, wishing he'd followed her on that awful glue on hooves she'd been riding. He never knew that she had in fact turned back, and tried to find him in town. He never realized that he'd never told her his name, and the townsfolk were unwilling to point a pretty, pious, White girl in the direction of a man that, for all of that he had done, could not escape the stigma of his birth.

**Kindness: 1945, California **

Sally Frances was the best girl at the USO. She always had a warm smile and a soft touch when she passed out coffee. Her eyes twinkled, and she was so full of life that boys shipping out often begged her for a dance or one touch that reminded them of their girl back home. Sally couldn't dance, couldn't even move without knocking into people, but it didn't matter. Sally bumped into Helen Martin. She was a nice girl, though somewhat younger than she was. Helen was a good friend, though. "Sorry, Helen. This place is a jam tonight."

The bow in Helen's hair was in place, crisply and neatly. Sally knew her own hair was a mess and the pencil marks on the back of her legs were crooked. "Well, all these boys are going to take out Hitler, and they'll be doing it thinking of our coffee." Helen was very idealistic, already having a solider sweetheart named Charlie Ely, from somewhere in Nevada. Helen's family was from there, but Helen and Charlie had only just begun to date when Uncle Sam came knocking. Over the music and the clatter of dishes, she called, "Sally! Look, it's John!"

Sally saw a young man with dark hair and dark eyes in front of her, across the room. He saw Helen and waived, crossing the room towards them both. They were from the same place, probably grew up together. Sally flushed. He was very good looking in his uniform, though she supposed that United States Army could take even the ugliest of men and shine him up some. She busied herself with coffee and tried not to think about her frizzy hair that never did hold a V-roll.

Moments later, she was heading towards the door when a voice stopped her, "Do you always run away, Miss Mouse?" His voice was everything she'd allowed herself to imagine, slow, teasing. The press of people over the loud orchestra hid his next words. Sally gestured quickly towards the door, knowing that he probably had a message from Helen. They found themselves outside, under the wide front porch of the USO dance hall. "Well, Miss Mouse, what have you to say for yourself?" He leaned against the wall, cap in hand. The porch was all but deserted.

"Look, Captain..." Sally started, staring at his jacket. How was he so ranked, when he looked so young? Sally didn't know, but she suddenly understood his easy bearing and his ownership of the uniform. This was no little boy shipping out, high on ideals. He, before her, was a man.

"John Morgan." He corrected, making it clear that he did want to be called by his rank or even his last name. "My buddy Charlie Ely sent word to his girl. I was the Pony Express. He said I had to meet you."

"Did he?" Sally grinned when he cracked a smile. It was wide and infectious. "I can't think why." She knew exactly why, as she knew exactly what Helen and Charlie were up to. Helen had tried to set her up again. She was headed back to St. Mary's come the start of term, and she had no urge to marry and settle down quickly. She wanted her country to crush Hitler, and she wanted to keep on working. Homemaking was not for her. Other girls dreamed of homes and babies, but she wasn't doing that until she met the right man.

"I can." John replied, in the dim light, over the loud noise that was muffled by the doorway. "Look, Sally. I know this is sudden, but can I write you? Charlie says you're at college, that you've got your head on your shoulders, and I'd like to be able to write to someone who doesn't want a promise of undying love." She blinked up at him, surprised by his sensibility. She thought they could be good friends. "I'd rather court a woman when I'm in the same country, and I'm off to Europe tomorrow."

Sally nodded, willing to do her patriotic duty, and trying not to admit that she wanted to talk to him and not any other soldier. Sally was happy that they spent the night talking about his studies at medical school and her love of Plato and St. Benedict. He had gone to Stanford. She wondered how they had never met at some function. The girls of St. Mary's often met Stanford boys. She gave him her address, and before he left, he kissed her cheek. She floated for months after that, floated as each letter came back and forth. He loved his Shoshoni culture, and wanted to practice rural medicine, wanted to be Chairman one day. He liked to eat raw tomatoes with salt on them. He enjoyed working on his father's ranch. He thought her drawings were funny, and thought she was a good writer. He gave feedback on her novel, most of which the government censored.

It all came crashing down when John's mother came to visit. He'd died in the Battle of the Bulge. In his final letter, he'd asked to take her out for dinner when he came home. She hadn't replied that she would go. It broke her heart that he'd died uncertain of her affections.

Sally kept it together when Helen married Charlie, and they had a son named Mac in 1946. She even smiled when her sister Becky married John's little brother. She cried at their wedding and accepted a hug from John's mother when she said, "That should have been you and Johnny." She got a cold that spring, and rejoiced when pneumonia took her away. Everyone said she'd died of a broken heart, though the poetry and the novel, all written during a high period of 1945, she had published posthumously spoke of great love and hope.

**Love: Present Day Nevada **

She looked up from her cards, with a calm expression on her face. "The Universe wasn't taking any chances, not this time." The permed lady said, "You're both stubborn. You could have been learning from each other 2000 years ago, if only your axle hadn't broken, Jake, and if you'd listened to your gut, Sam. It's why you've got a telepathic connection now."

Jake tried to school his expression. The best medium in the country, whom they'd arranged to see under much secrecy, had spent the last three hours telling them about past lives in the kitchen of Deerpath. But...how did she know about the telepathy? No one knew that. Jake pushed out to Sam, and found that she believed this, she trusted this woman's word. "Excuse me? You mean to tell me that I..." Jake broke off, shocked by the images in his mind.

The intuitive woman filled him in, "Well, more than likely, you two have a destiny that you kept passing by. You're rather running out of time, I should think." She looked at Sam, and replied to a question that Jake heard in his head, "His name was David." She shuffled her cards, a satisfied look on her face as Jake realized something.

"Wait. Mac is my Grandfather. You're telling me I'm my Grandfather's dead uncle?" He blurted, trying to put the pieces together. In his head, Sam supplied information. Helen Martin was somehow related to his mother's family. His mother's mother had been a Martin, and his parents had met at some reunion when the friends had all gotten together. That's how his parents had met, through their convoluted relationships. Sally, Sam pointed out, was somehow distantly related to Grace, an Aunt maybe. It was all a mishmash of people. He was glad that weren't somehow inbred with all of these people conspiring against them.

She shook her head, "No. You had a past life as that man. You, yourself, are Jake Ely. That's all who matters now." She paused for a moment and let that sink in. Sam shot him a look. He supposed he was freaking out. He'd heard about John and Sally before, though this woman would never know that.

"I told you, Jake, that the universe wasn't giving you two a choice this time, and souls often cycle together." She flipped a card, and looked directly at them, "You were meant to learn from each other over the millennia, sometimes as friends, sometimes as lovers." She moved her fingers over her cards.

Sam spluttered, although he felt the calmness emanating from her soul. "I'm sorry. You're saying we're telepathic because we need to learn from each other?" Jake saw images of learning from each other across their lifetime. He knew that he could never have been any of those people.

If he had been a solider in Egypt, he would have taken Cody back with him. He would have asked her name, if he was so smart so as to work with Plato. He would have sailed the sea for her, made the first maps, the ones that lead to her. He would never have let her leave his land, once she was there, not for all of the gold in California. He would not have left her behind, not in 1945, not even to bring down Hitler.

She was his soul, and he had never lived a day without her. He'd lived as Jake Ely, who spent three years he couldn't recall waiting for her to make her entrance into the world. If they'd had a connection from the start, it was only because it was meant to be, and the reason why didn't matter.

The idea that in the past, that she'd raised her babies with someone else, been a mother to children he hadn't known, that she'd created her own world in someone else's home didn't sit well with him because he knew that Sam wouldn't want to live like that. It might have been thousands of years ago, but he still wanted to punch the guy for not allowing her to learn, not ensuring she didn't get pregnant so soon after a first birth without medical care. He was annoyed, too, at the idea that Sam believed that he would ever, ever, walk through this world without knowing that she was happy. No matter what Sam was thinking, the fact that he'd felt at home on Stanford's campus had nothing to do with anything. He'd merely enjoyed being there to talk to the equine medicine classes.

Sam squeezed his hand under the table and sent him a comforting image. He knew damn well she was safe and here with him now. The woman turned another card, "Yes, but now, you've got to pack two thousand years of sharing and growth into one lifetime. Hence, your subconscious is helping you out. Can you imagine how tough being famous would be without the telepathy?"

Jake couldn't. They had snuck away from a seminar, and they were headed out on plane tomorrow. Without the telepathy, their jobs would be next to impossible, or at least very tough on their personal lives, even if it did have complications, as anything might.

As they watched the lady drive off, Jake kissed the top of Sam's head, and smelled the soft scent of her hair. It smelled like lemongrass, as it always did. Past lives, though, didn't exist. Neither did telepathy.

_"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."_

Galatians, 5:22-23, KJV

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